Quote:
Originally Posted by WhateverDude
The animals benefit from having rights. Are you saying you're opposed to that because they can't participate in society? We have laws that protect the environment, some of which I'm sure don't have any impact on what constitutes as society in your opinion. But it's kinda cool to live in a world that still has rain forests, dontchya think?
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that's fair enough.. my thing is when a law is actually counter productive towards society for the sake of being nice to animals then i think it's a bit ridiculous. for example.. cat kicker goes to jail for a year. what does this accomplish? deterrence? unlikely. this is the kind of mindless teenage crime that won't respond to such efforts. justice? maybe in name but once again justice is being heavy handed in this one particular case due to a fetish people have for cute animals. keeping a threat away from society? hardly. on top of this it's well known that sending people to jail very often turns them into more hardened criminals than they were when they got sent in. this doesn't mean never send anyone to jail. it means be smart about it. if the person is a serious criminal threat then maybe they need to go to jail. if they kick a cat then maybe they need some therapy or something... i dunno, but jail certainly isn't going to fix them. it's just vicarious revenge. and it leaves us worse off than where we started. why would we behave this way?